Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to imaging devices. More specifically, certain embodiments relate to high resolution imaging device with wide field and extended focus used in applications such as microscopy or photography.
With ever increasing forms and modalities, microscopes are proving to be powerful tools for exploring modern science. The gentleness of light has especially made an optical microscope a tool of choice to noninvasively probe living cells.
Despite being mature tools, conventional optical microscopes do not have the ability to acquire high resolution images of large sample volumes. This inability is the consequence of a tradeoff between a conventional microscope's resolution, its field of view, and its depth of field. While the resolution of a conventional microscope defines the size of the smallest sample detail that can be discerned, the field of view defines the largest transverse (x, y) sample area that can be imaged, and the depth of field defines the maximum axial (z) sample thickness that can be imaged in focus. Resolution, field of view, and depth of field are tightly constrained parameters in these conventional optical microscopes. In conventional microscopes, any attempt to increase resolution fundamentally results in a decrease in the depth of field, and for practical purposes decreases the field of view. Conventional microscopes are therefore restricted to acquire either low resolution images of large sample volumes, or high resolution images of small sample volumes.